In a flesh of inspiration, hard-up York fashion students have stripped off to raise funds for a catwalk show. MAXINE GORDON meets North Yorkshire's newest calendar girls.
WITH their way-out designs and wacky wardrobes, these fashion students at York College are more used to setting trends than following them. But their latest creation - in which they appear in a variety of sexy poses for a calendar - will stir memories of North Yorkshire's original calendar girls: the 11 women from the Rylstone and District Women's Institute who last year posed wearing nothing but pearl necklaces, hats and strategically positioned floral displays.
The WI ladies stripped off to raise money for Leukaemia Research Fund - collecting more than £330,000.
They attracted huge interest from America, where producers now want to make a film about them.
The fashion students also decided to bare all in a calendar for financial reasons - to fund a catwalk show of their end-of-course collections at Graduate Fashion Week in London next year.
"We need to raise about £3,000," said student Debi Walker, who came up with the idea of doing the calendar - surprisingly without having heard of the WI ladies.
"I was trying to think of fundraising ideas and I thought of a calendar because it was coming to the end of the year," says Debi who appears as Miss November in the calendar, which has a limited print run of 300.
Entitled Desire 2001, the front cover features six of the girls lying naked on their backs with only the briefest of briefs and their arms wrapped across their chest to save their blushes.
When Debi put the suggestion to her friends on the HND II course in Fashion Design at the college, they recalled the infamous calendar and were confident they could follow its success, albeit on a smaller scale. "We thought it was a really good idea," says Naomi Stanley, who as Miss August wears just a skimpy pair of knickers and a tiny handerchief halterneck top.
"We're going for a totally different look to the WI," adds Cheryl Taylor, Miss July.
"We're aiming for a different market - it's in the style of what you might see in a man's magazine like FHM," says Donna Leaf, who as Miss April lies on a bed in cropped white vest and black hotpants.
The photographs - taken by evening class photography students at the college - are provocative, but the girls believe they are sophisticated and sexy rather than saucy or tawdry.
"We had no qualms about doing it," confesses Debi. "As long as we look nice. We model in most of the catwalk shows in York - and most of them have our boobs and bums showing!"
The calendar was launched at another fundraising event - a party at Fibbers in York last night. It will be on sale at selected venues in the city, priced £6.
The students will be organising other cash-raising schemes next year to reach their target, including an auction of their collections.
Money raised will help meet the costs of staging their catwalk show at the prestigious Graduate Fashion Week in London next summer, including the hire of a stand and models.
The event has become known as a hunting ground for the design stars of tomorrow. Top names such as Antonio Beradi, Stella McCartney and Julien MacDonald all experienced their first introduction to the catwalk during Graduate Fashion Week.
"All the top designers' scouts go there," says Debi. "And if we do a good show, it also gives the college a good name."
To order a copy of Desire 2001, call 07939 538192 or 07779 583723.
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